The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services has forwarded a proposal in which it has recommended not to change its coverage of anemia drugs made by Amgen Inc. (AMGN) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ).

Acknowledging the potential problems with the drugs, the agency still has to come up with its final decision for treatment of chronic kidney disease and dialysis-related anemia.

Aranesp, Epogen and Procrit belong to a category of drugs known as erythropoiesis-stimulating agents and they are known to treat anemia by boosting the number of red blood cells.

Various safety concerns were raised related to these drugs which created a kind of pressure in sales, various Food and Drug Administration reviews and warnings on the drugs' labels.

In an official conclusive statement, CMC said, “We did find emerging evidence for harm in areas including increased mortality, tumor progression and stroke, but the current studies are insufficient to delineate the risk and benefit ratio for the various patient populations, particularly the Medicare population”.

Data from Thomson Reuters suggest that the situation has led to a steep decline in the sales of these drugs in recent years but Amgen's Aranesp and Epogen along with J&J's Procrit are still expected to generate $7 billion revenue in 2011.